1. STATE UNIVERSITY OF NEW YORK (SUNY) COLLEGE AT OSWEGO
Power Up+1
:
LoL ESports
Nicole Horn
Due: December 5th
, 2014

2. 1
Table of Contents
Introduction....................................................................................................................................2
ESports............................................................................................................................................2
History of ESports ........................................................................................................................3
The Dawn of Competitive Gaming ..........................................................................................3
The Beginnings of ESports.......................................................................................................4
The Rise in Popularity of ESports............................................................................................5
Esports Taking Off in America ....................................................................................................6
The Controversy Over ESports ....................................................................................................7
Riot Games, Inc..............................................................................................................................8
League of Legends .......................................................................................................................8
League of Legends ESports..........................................................................................................9
World Championship................................................................................................................9
Viewership of Worlds.............................................................................................................11
Conclusion ....................................................................................................................................13
Bibliography .................................................................................................................................14

3. 2
Introduction
The industry of video games has been able to captivate consumers since its creation,
causing, in 2013, gaming to erupt into a $66 billion global industry (Nayak, 2013). Recently the
development of electronic sports, also known as ESports, has generated a craze among gamers.
The sudden rise in popularity has allowed people to be able to turn to professional gaming as a
viable career. Although ESports is not clearly defined, its history can be traced all the way back
to 1980 when people played Atari’s Space Invaders (Birchtree, 2012). Since then the competitive
gaming scene has adapted and developed into specialized events that attract millions of viewers.
The growth in competitive gaming has given way to a relatively new form of game known as
multiplayer online battle arena (MOBA). One MOBA, known as League of Legends, has made
impressive leaps within the realm of video games which has allowed it to become the most
played online game in the world. League of Legends ESports has grown at a phenomenal rate
and serves as a prime example of the power of gaming. By looking at its competitive gaming
scene and its domination within online computer games, one can see how the creators of the
game attracted gamers and established a loyal fan-base.
ESports
Despite the ambiguity of the term, ESports is always associated with competitive gaming
and is often interchangeable with the word. The main idea of ESports is to have organized
competitive gaming events where gamers or professional gamers go head to head against each
other—often competing for a championship title, a large sum of money, or a combination of
both. The most common video game genres that are found in ESports are real-time strategy
(RTS), first-person shooter (FPS), fighter, and multiplayer online battle arena (MOBA) (Bogdan,
2012). These genres spark a gamer’s competitive nature due to the fact that the genres revolve

4. 3
around competing against other people or non-playable characters, which would explain why
they are seen so much in electronic sports. To get a better understanding on the world of ESports
one must identify its history, what fueled the recent trend in America, and the debate which has
plagued competitive gaming. These factors will shed some light on how electronic sports became
the popular sensation it is known as today while offering insight on the possible future of
gaming.
History of ESports
ESports is quickly gaining ground as its fan base widens but understanding how the video
game adapted in order to allow this phenomenon to occur is a vital factor in identifying the
evolution of ESports. The history of competitive gaming can be broken down into three time
frames which will be discussed in subsections in order to understand how changes in technology
facilitated competitive gaming.
The Dawn of Competitive Gaming
The first time frame that is notable within the existence of competitive gaming is the
period between 1980 and 1990 (Edwards, 2013). During this time competitions would erupt over
arcade games where friends would challenge each other in order to beat their high scores
(Edwards, 2013). This friendly form of competition gave way to the creation of some of the first
gaming tournaments (Edwards, 2013). The first video game competition was created by Atari
who held a Space Invaders Competition in 1980 (Edwards, 2013). Space Invaders, as seen in
Figure 1, is a simple game whose purpose is to defend your ship from the aliens who attack. The
event was able to hold over ten thousand participants which started the development of ESports
as more and more tournaments were established (Edwards, 2013). During the 1990s, arcade and
console tournaments had become a more common occurrence (Edwards, 2013). World

5. 4
Figure 1
Space Invaders Gameplay
(Duncan, 2013)
championships were often sponsored
by companies like Nintendo and
Blockbuster (Edwards, 2013).
Tournaments also offered brackets for
kids and teens to compete in order to
attract a bigger following (Edwards,
2013). Overall, this period of time set
competitive gaming in motion which
further developed in the next decade.
The Beginnings of ESports
The competitive gaming scene during the 1990s was led by the development of personal
computer (PC) gaming, where the first true ESports competitions appeared (Edwards, 2013). In
1997 a tournament was held by Red Annihilation for the game Quake, a first-person shooter,
which is widely considered to have been the first example of ESports (Edwards, 2013). This
event attracted over 2,000 participants, and the winner of the tournament received a Ferrari
previously owned by the lead developer of Quake (Edwards, 2013). Shortly after this event, the
Cyberathlete Professional League, one of the first major gaming leagues, was established
(Edwards, 2013). This league began holding some of its first competitions soon after its creation
and by the following year it was able to offer $15,000 in prize money to its participants
(Edwards, 2013). During this time, most ESports genres were first-person shooters, sports
games, and arcade-style games, but the release of the real-time strategy sensation, known as
Starcraft, appeared in the late 90s (Edwards, 2013). Starcraft possesses nearly limitless strategic
potential which enabled it to become one of the iconic ESports games that influenced the

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competitive gaming scene, but its popularity would not peak until after 2000 (Edwards, 2013).
Overall, this decade revolved around establishing tournaments and leagues in order to create the
ESports environment that grew in the next decade.
The Rise in Popularity in ESports
ESports finally started making a name for itself after the turn of the millennium, with the
ascension of popular tournaments and games that “make up the backbone of the ESports world”
(Edwards, 2013). In 2000, the World Cyber Games and the Electronic Sports World Cup was
launched (Edwards, 2013). These two events are major international tournaments that are held on
an annual basis; they also set the tone for big name tournaments which have helped to define the
ESports world (Edwards, 2013). In 2002, Major League Gaming (MLG) was established which
has become the largest and most successful of the gaming leagues (Edwards, 2013). Although
their events are mostly viewed through the internet, the spring championship of 2012 was able to
draw in more than 4 million viewers, which beat out certain sporting events like the 2012 NBA
All-Star Game (Edwards, 2013). New games like Starcraft II, Halo, Counter-Strike, and League
of Legends have been able to enter the ESports scene which has further fueled the popularity in
competitive gaming (Edwards, 2013). Overall, this millennium has brought great changes and
new gaming creations to its consumers allowing video games and ESports to continue to grow in
popularity (Edwards, 2013).
These three periods of time have been successful in cultivating the realm of electronic
sports. The success achieved within these time frames could be accredited to the technological
innovations that were created and then utilized by the video game industry. As the technology
advanced, new and creative games were developed which has encouraged gamers to remain loyal
to the industry as a form of entertainment while attracting more viewers to ESports events.

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ESports Taking Off in America
Despite the lack of attention ESports received in earlier years, electronic sports have now
taken hold of the American gaming culture. The success of ESports in America can be attributed
to five factors which include tournaments, Twitch, commentators and casters, team houses, and
the ESports community. Tournaments create excitement for avid gamers while creating a buzz
that attracts viewers, which was highlighted in the previous section. Twitch is a major factor to
the rise in popularity of ESports (Jackson, 2013). Twitch, launched in 2011, is a United Stated
based website that allows gaming entertainers to stream live or recorded videos of themselves
and viewers can watch and enjoy their favorite games being played (Jackson, 2013). Leah
Jackson, a freelance writer for IGN, reports that, “Nowadays, over 35 million viewers watch
gaming-related content broadcasted over Twitch every month.” Many of the big tournaments that
are held are also broadcasted on Twitch for the enjoyment of fellow gamers (Jackson, 2013). The
next factor pertains to the amount of ESports casters and commentators, which has been
increasing in America due to Twitch (Jackson, 2013). A caster or commentator, similar to a
sports broadcaster, maintains a vast amount of knowledge on certain ESports titles in order to
announce the events of a game and offer an in-depth analysis for the viewers (Jackson, 2013).
The next factor that contributes to the ESports scene is the concept of a team house (Jackson,
2013). Team houses have been very popular in South Korea but it is a fairly new trend that has
taken root in the U.S. (Jackson, 2013). A team house is a house where professional gamers, who
belong to the same company or gaming team, live together in order to train and scrimmage other
teams. Cody Conners, a manager of an ESports team, mentions that he believes that team houses
allow players to interact with other players of the same caliber which provides a rich and growth
inducing environment (Jackson, 2013). He also thinks that team houses are important to the

8. 7
growth in electronic sports because it shows that pro players are taking their profession seriously
(Jackson, 2013). The last factor is attributed to the ESports community. Numerous amounts of
websites exist which are dedicated to ESports while fans create organizations that can further
improve the ESports outlook within the future (Jackson, 2013). These five factors create an
environment for ESports that is full of hard work, passion, commitment, and support, which has
accelerated the attention ESports has received in recent years.
The Controversy Over ESports
The surge in popularity of competitive gaming within recent years has gained a lot of
attention from fans and bystanders. Organizations seek to become more involved within the sport
of gaming while game developers try to include features that encourage competition within their
game designs (Bogdan, 2012), but as video gaming flourishes the controversy over ESports
becomes more heated. Adamant gamers believe that video gaming is a real sport but others share
the opposite opinion. This debate raises the question of whether or not ESports will ever become
as popular as ‘real’ sports, which is a subject that undergoes a lot of speculation. ESPN
president, John Skipper, stated that, “It’s not a sport — it’s a competition. Chess is a
competition. Checkers is a competition…Mostly, I’m interested in doing real sports”
(Chmielewski, 2014). This opinion leads one to question the standards of which John Skipper
holds sports to, but Dictionary.com defines sports as, “An athletic activity requiring skill or
physical prowess and often of a competitive nature, as racing, baseball, tennis, golf, bowling,
wrestling, boxing, hunting, fishing, etc.” This definition assumes that a sport could be based
upon skill which gaming is full of, but people who share the same view on gaming as John
Skipper would beg to differ. On the other hand, Alex Chu, a pro gamer, believes that the
popularity in ESports will mirror that of real sports and it is only a matter of time until it happens

9. 8
(Gaudiosi, 2014). Chu thinks that the line between sports and competitive gaming will never go
away but the similarities in appeal and structure are beginning to blend together and he believes
viewers will begin to see it, too (Gaudiosi, 2014). Although this debate is highly opinion based
one should pay attention to this discussion as ESports makes more headway within the
entertainment industry. Now that a general understanding of ESports exists, one can go further
by looking at the company who has created a massive impact within ESports.
Riot Games, Inc.
Riot Games, Inc., headquartered in Santa Monica, CA, is an international company that
developed League of Legends (Riot Games, n.d.). In order to ensure the player’s experience on a
global scale, Riot established thirteen offices within different countries, and Riot Games’
aspiration is to become the most player-focused game company in the world (Riot Games, n.d.).
This drive has allowed League of Legends to grow in popularity and demand due to the focus
that is placed on the community. Today the game has 67 million people playing every month, 27
million people playing every day, and more than 7.5 million people playing simultaneously
during the game’s peak hours of play worldwide (Our Games, n.d.). The company stresses
customer service, providing gamers with the best experiences they can offer, which is why
League of Legends is the sensation it is today. This effect resulted in the rise of League of
Legends ESports which has been gaining more momentum from year to year. By identifying
Riot’s creation and its presence within ESports, one can see the power of gaming.
League of Legends
League of Legends (LoL), launched in 2009, is an online free-to-play MOBA (Our
Games, n.d.). The genre of multiplayer online battle arena can be defined as a combination of
real-time strategy and role-playing games that requires a player to control one character within a

10. 9
team-based competition to destroy the enemy team’s “base” (C., Ryan, 2012). League of
Legends has done just that, and although LoL was not the first of its kind, the company coined
the term MOBA which has been accepted into the gaming community (Gaudiosi, 2012).
The game offers three different maps to play on but there are different rules and goals for
each map. In order to play on their most commonly played map, one must “queue up” in order to
be paired with four other players. They are then matched with five other players whom they go
up against. The teams choose champions to play, who are all different within their style and
gameplay mechanics, where they then go on to accomplish the goal of the MOBA genre (What is
League?, n.d.). This game-style is not new to the gaming community but League of Legends has
been able to make a name for itself which Alex Chu attributes to the fact that the game is always
evolving (Gaudiosi, 2014). League of Legends undergoes maintenance on a regular basis and
updates, known as patches, occur, which tweaks, changes, and improves upon its gameplay.
During the transition between years Riot develops a new aspect or way to enhance the gaming
experience by adding in new objectives and characters. This keeps the game fresh, according to
Alex Chu, who is a pro LoL player (Gaudiosi, 2014). This brief synopsis of the game and its
purpose will help one identify the craze it has started within ESports, despite its fairly new
existence within the realm of gaming.
League of Legends ESports
World Championship
Every year, Riot Games hosts their League Championship Series (LCS) which leads up to
the world championship (Magrino, 2014). This massive event can be broken down into three
components (Magrino, 2014). The first phase, referred to as Regionals, contains six regional
tournaments that account for five of the major leagues that LoL consists of as well as an

11. 10
international wildcard (Magrino, 2014). The five professional gaming regions of League of
Legends are North America (NA LCS), Europe (EU LCS), Korea (Champions), China (League
of Legends Pro League), and Southeast Asia and Tawian (Garena Premier League) (Fields,
2014). The International Wildcard qualifier consists of professional teams from Russia, Oceania,
Turkey, Brazil, and Latin America, where they challenge each other for a chance to advance in
the tournament (Fields, 2014). Each region maintains its own way of completing this phase of
the tournament and the top two to three ranked winning teams move on to the next phase of the
series (Fields, 2014). The next phase, known as the Group Stage, revolves around a Round
Robin-style of tournament (Magrino, 2014). Every team who advances to this stage is split up
into three separate pools, based upon their results in phase one, which are then split up into
randomized groups where they compete against the
other pools they were paired up with (Magrino, 2014).
The one stipulation to this round of competition
prohibits a region to have two of their teams within
the same group. Once the rounds of competition are
over, eight teams advance to the third and final stage.
The last stage, referred to as the Bracket Stage,
commences the World Championship (Magrino,
2014). This phase is based upon knock-out style
elimination until only two teams are left (Magrino,
2014). The final round of competition draws the
World Championship to a close where one team is
declared the champions, winning the right to have
Figure 2
Summoner’s Cup
(Magrino, 2014)

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their names engraved into the Summoner’s Cup while earning a large amount of prize money
(Magrino, 2014).
Viewership of Worlds
As League of Legends reaches out to an ever-growing audience, their hard work and
effort of their labor can be seen through the statistics of previous League Championship Series.
In 2012, the Season 2 Championships had attracted 8.2 million viewers, making the event the
most-watched ESport event in history (Lien, 2012). This was a great feat to conquer but the
following year brought an even more promising outlook. In 2013, 32 million fans tuned in to
watch the Season 3 World Championship. This number was almost eight times the amount of
viewers that had broken ESports history the previous year (Gafford & Breslau, 2013). Also the
peak viewership in 2012 was 1.1 million people whereas in 2013 the peak viewership of the LCS
was 8.5 million people, which was more than the total amount of viewers in 2012 (Gafford &
Breslau, 2013). The Reddit General Manager, Erik Martin, reported that,
“…the League of Legends subreddit had more views (5.8M views) on the day of the
finals than subreddits for the series finale of Breaking Bad (4.7M views), The Super
Bowl (930k views), Game 7 of the 2012-2013 NBA Finals (1.2M views), and release of
Grand Theft Auto V (1M views)” (Gafford & Breslau, 2013).
The Championship was held at the Staples Center in Los Angeles where 16,000 fans came to
watch the spectacle firsthand (Jackson, 2013). Even more impressing, the tickets that went on
sale were sold out within an hour after they were available for purchase (Tassi, 2013). As the
2013 World series came to an end it became the most watched ESports event of all time (Gafford
& Breslau, 2013), gaining more viewers than other sports events as seen in Figure 3. In 2014, the

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LCS was recognized as the biggest live ESports event, being hosted in four cities and three
different countries (Arran, 2014, October 20). The final event was hosted at the World Cup
Stadium in Seoul, South Korea, where 40,000 fans flocked to experience the finale (Warr, 2014),
and boasted an array of events to create hype for the upcoming game (Pitcher, 2014). The
opening ceremony contained a traditional Korean presentation which was followed by Imagine
Dragons, a rock group, who created the 2014 LCS anthem song (Arran, 2014, October 20).
People speculated upon the upscale production of the whole event, claiming that no ESports
event had ever tried to accomplish such a feat, and Worlds was also given credit for being the
most professionally executed broadcast for an ESports live event (Arran, 2014, October 20). The
prize money pool was slightly higher compared to the other championship series, awarding the
winners $1 million while the other million was split among the other teams who had made it to
the third phase (World Championship, 2014). Unfortunately, the amount of viewers decreased
from the previous year to 27 million viewers, but the average amount of time fans watched the
finals increased from 42 minutes to 67 minutes and there were 11.2 million viewers at the peak
of viewership (Gafford, 2014). Also, the amount of hours spent watching the World
Championship more than doubled from 70 million hours to 179 million hours (Gafford, 2014).
Figure 3
Viewership of Sports Events
(Schwartz, 2014)

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As one can see, LoL ESports is creating a huge wake that has shaken up and altered the way in
which ESports events are portrayed for the enjoyment of avid gamers.
Conclusion
With the success of League of Legends comes a vast amount of opportunities for other
companies to try and follow in their footsteps. Games consisting of the MOBA genre have begun
to appear such as Dawngate, Smite, and Strife. Now, League of Legends is facing the threat of
more competition but the game has the title of being the first official MOBA, leaving its
competitors with large shoes to fill, yet its future outlook seems bright. The game was able to
generate revenue of $946 million in 2014 and it was projected to pass the $1 billion mark by the
end of the year (Arran, 2014, October 23). League of Legends is constantly adapting and
evolving in order to stay relevant within online gaming. The game’s future success may not be
able to be predicted until Riot unveils what it has in store in the upcoming season, but one things
for sure, League of Legends, among other major games, has developed the ESports scene into
what it is today, which will steadily gain ground as video games become an even bigger form of
entertainment to consumers.

15. 14
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